Let’s be honest: it’s not a great result. It would have been far better if all 27 EU member states had agreed on an inclusive treaty change this weekend. Instead we may find ourselves in a group of one or two with almost every other EU state involved in a different bloc.
I don’t say this because I’m a starry-eyed pro-European Liberal Democrat. Actually Lib Dems have consistently argued for reform in Europe. We have argued for more focus on building UK and European business and prosperity. We’ve argued that there should be greater flexibility for EU members to vary policy at regional or national level where EU regulation is counter-productive, whether that means helping remote areas of the UK with their fuel prices or exercising more fisheries powers at national level.
But fundamentally Liberal Democrats have always argued that being in the European Union and in the single market is in the interests of British people and the British economy. It gives us access to the largest free trade area in the world, worth £12tn in GDP and more than 500 million consumers. 50% of our trade is with other EU members and £351bn worth of inward investment comes to the UK from the rest of the EU every year (equivalent to half of all Government spending this year). That means that roughly 3.5m British jobs – one in every 10 – are reliant on the EU single market.
So for the UK to be left outside a process involving most of other 26 is a risk. The creation of a more integrated Eurozone could potentially undermine the interests of countries which are not part of it. Decisions that affect all 27 EU members – including Britain – shouldn’t just be taken by the 17 countries that have the Euro or even the 23+ members of the new pact. It is always better to be in the room, negotiating, than it is to find out the decision by email after the meeting has finished.
So it was perfectly reasonable for the UK government to seek some modest and reasonable safeguards, not UK-specific carve-outs. The UK wanted to maintain a level playing field in financial services and the single market as a whole. Sensibly, this would have retained the UK’s ability to take tougher, not looser, regulatory action to sort out our banking system and implement, for example, the recommendations of the Vickers Commission.
Unfortunately, other countries were not prepared to include those safeguards for the single market in the changes we were discussing. The Prime Minister was left with no real choice and had to make the decision he did. It was not a veto, as it will not stop the other countries from pursuing reform. Much of that reform is incredibly important to get right as soon as possible as we all need there to be a solution to the Eurozone crisis. With so much at stake for British jobs which so depend on a healthy European economy, we need to get solutions to the systemic flaws in the Euro and get market confidence back on track.
Now that these measures and solutions will take the form of a separate treaty, leaving the UK outside of important decisions, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have to argue hard within the Coalition Government and with our European partners that Britain needs to stay at the heart of European decision-making and where changes occur, that the integrity of our open European single market is kept intact. And we will continue to work together on the long-term problems of competitiveness within the EU on which millions of people’s jobs depend.
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38 Comments
“The creation of a more integrated Eurozone could potentially undermine the interests of countries which are not part of it.”
Yes, but when you call for Britain to be at the heart of european decision making I demand that you are candid about what you really mean, but struggle to articulate openly:
What are the consequences of this fantasy you hold to; are you willing to turn to the British public and admit the price, the loss of sovereignty, involved in joining France and Germany at the helm of europe?
I ask you to be honest about the implications of these pious mutterings; are you willing to state plainly to the electorate the consequence of being in the first tier, i.e. being in the euro and a driving force in further federalism?
If Nick Clegg and his colleagues seriously wish to convince us that from this point onwards they are going to fight hard and long to keep the UK at the heart of Europe, can they at least put the breaks on the very strange arrangement by which David Lidington has been authorised to discuss directly with Conservative Eurosceptic groupings in the House of Commons the powers that they want repatriating from the EU and the ways and means of achieving this ?
Cameron had not real choice!?
At best he was blundering and incompetent, at worst simply pandering to the Tory Eurosceptics.
Clegg himself has been very critical this morning, others such as Ashdown, more outspoken. Why does Martin Horwood think that he has to try to defend Cameron?
In 1975 we voted by two to one in favour of membership of the EEC. Last Friday’s summit was principally concerned with saving the EU’s sacred cow, the Euro.
For David Cameron to have accepted the imposition of yet more regulation on behalf of this country by an institution that the people of this country have never been consulted on, on behalf of a currency union that we don’t belong to would have been unacceptable. By all means ask us now if that is what we are prepared to accept but don’t bet the farm on a ‘yes’ vote.
This unapologetic pro federal European Union Liberal Democrat probably agrees with much of what is not only being said openly but behind David Cameron’s back by his present 26 fellow EU leaders and their electorate over his 2011-12-09 narrow minded anti-common-EU-good veto… a veto playing to Britain’s EU skeptics that has put the UK behind the 8-ball in its future dealings and influence within the European Union… roll on Britain’s 2015-05-07 general election and the end to Cameron’s politics…
@ Mark – “Clegg himself has been very critical this morning, others such as Ashdown, more outspoken. Why does Martin Horwood think that he has to try to defend Cameron?”
From the guardian:
“On Friday Clegg had come under heavy criticism from fellow Liberal Democrats for appearing to back the prime minister. After the summit he said Cameron’s demands had been “modest and reasonable”. It is understood that he later concluded that, politically, he could not be seen backing a deal that Lib Dems regard as having been forced by a group of hardline Eurosceptics.”
Switzerland’s at the heart of Europe geographically, yet still better off out of the EU. Say no more !
Various “Senior Lib Dems” are giving soundbites about the situation in Brussels, but none of them have given any reasons why they think it would be a good idea to sign up to a treaty/consitutional balanced budget amendment limiting budget deficits to an absolute most of 3 percent of GDP regardless of circumstances (i.e. forcing all future governments to be way more deficit-hawkish than any of the current parties wish to be). Nor have we seen any arguments for why a Tobin tax is a good idea (other than Cameron doesn’t want one because it is bad for “his friends”, therefore we do).
Sadly, I suspect that very few of these people actually supported these policies until it became the “European” thing to do. The balanced budget amendment, in other words “cutting up the credit cards”, is being adopted by the other countries out of necessity as nobody wants to lend them money any more, the responsible euro countries have tied themselves to the irresponsible ones, and the non-members who don’t even currently qualify for euro membership have similar credibility problems with potential creditors – we don’t because we have the balls to cut our own deficit ourselves without waiting for an absolute crisis. There was a move towards adopting these amendments on an unilateral basis before the treaty (e.g. Poland, Slovakia) but doing it at treaty level increases the credibility *. The Tobin tax is pure petulance, they blame the markets for not containing an ever-increasing number of participants willing to lend them ever-increasing sums of money – but actually removing high frequency trading would lead to wider bid offer spreads in the markets, making holding bonds less attractive not more.
To say that someone with more diplomatic skills than Cameron (and yes, he is annoying) would have somehow made everyone on the continent forget about what was going on in their economies and choose a treaty based on something different is to massively overestimate the effect politicians can have on foreign governments.
This kind of irrational kneejerk uninformed pro-Europeanism is exactly the same as the irrational kneejerk uninformed anti-Europeanism we rightly oppose. This leaves people like me (British Lib Dem but married into the eurozone and living here with my local wife 2 dual-citizen kids), who are cultural pro-European, but who think policy originating in the EU should be subjected to the same level of debate and scrutiny as policy originating within the nation state, instead of emotionally accepted or rejected on the basis of misplaced loyalty towards Europe or their home country.
* Although the credibility problem is that it is all too predictable that the 26 will agree to suspend the rules again next time a major recession comes round – so lending to European governments remains a major risk.
@Richard Swales
The Tobin tax wasn’t on the agenda. The UK already has a veto should there every be a vote.
As for the 3 percent fo GDP deficit requirement, this applies to the Euro zone and always has since the Euro was first introduced. What is proposed to change is to allow ‘Brussels’ to better police limits to individual Eurozone country deficits as a share of GDP. Why? Because it allows the European Central Bank (ECB) to change its policy and become lender of last resort, free to provide the very necessary monetary stimulus required in Europe.
I believe what Clegg said this morning was that the Cabinet had agreed a negotiating position designed to protect Financiai Services and the single market. A negotiating position is not an ultimatum and Cameron could have continued negotiating. It has also become apparent that there was no transfer of powers envisaged in the Treaty, the proposal to impose regulations on the City of London came from an earlier proposal. As far as I am aware he British Government has its own proposals derived fro the Vickers committee recommendations. I am not sure whether the Commissions proposals are valid but then again they could have been negotiated separately from this Treaty.
I am not convinced that the problems of the Euro have been solved by this Treaty, we shall have to wait and see, the market appears to be King and that is where true sovereigny lies.
I shall be amazed if the markets haven’t blown the agreement of the 23 ( or is it the 26 ) apart by Christmas.
Jedi,
the point is simple, if you want to be in the market and support the benefits gained by trade, then we must bear some responsibility for setting the rules of exchange.
If people see you never get out of your chair they stop asking you to dance.
Philip, if the deal is as inadequate as you suggest, the markets would have already reacted. They haven’t.
If they do react negatively by Christmas it will because of something else.
I suggest that the markets believe that the ‘deal’ was done as part of a negotiation to win from the European Central Bank (ECB) monetary stimulation, and that the markets don’t expect the deal to persist after the Euro economies have recovered.
Most central banks have a dual mandate; one is to pursue price stability but the second is to pursue another goal centred around unemployment – hence, at the zero bound, the Fed and the BoE’s uses of QE.
The ECB has operated a single mandate, keeping money tight and seeking to deliver 1% inflation in the German economy. (This of course produces 5 or 6% deflation in Greece and lesser degrees of deflation in Italy, Spain, Portugal etc.)
The only way to convince the ECB to relax this tight money policy was to do this week’s deal, which as Mark above points out is only to reiterate what the original fiscal limits were of countries asking admission into the Euro.
So, everyone understands the subtext except …
Well Cameron clearly understood it but thought it a good opportunity to play to his Europhobes.
Which leaves Clegg and his team of advisers as perhaps the only people with power and influence in the whole of Europe who didn’t realise what was going on. He needed to read the riot act to Cameron in Cabinet when it considered the UK’s negotiating position.
“You married me in May 2010, not Bill Cash.”
Of course, if the ECB doesn’t soon announce monetary easing (banker of last resort behaviour/some QE etc) then the markets will run for cover.
The markets haven’t reacted significantly because there is nothing to react to yet – just some promises, which will not actually be kept in practice. There is some suggestion that this deal may make a proper round of quantitative easing (around 1 trillion euros would be a game changer) by ECB politically acceptable to the German electorate. The Slovak minister of finance is expecting another summit on the 19th of December, at which hopefully this will be sorted out.
@Mark, yes they have agreed to better policing of the strict rules, which is necessary if you have a common currency (although next time a recession comes around and want to run deficits larger than 3 percent they can still unvote what they agree now – at least they will do it collectively). It still doesn’t change the fact that it makes no sense for the UK to be signed up to rules intended for a common currency when we have our own currency and are still able to borrow in it. One of the advantages of smaller currency areas (national or even regional currencies) is that you have a freer hand than can be allowed in a larger currency area. If we signed up we would have one of the disadvantages of being in the euro without any of the advantages.
To give you the idea of the attractiveness of limiting debt by treaty rather than on an individual basis (this is why other non-eurozone, mostly East European members, are interested in signing up to this) , the Slovak parliament had trouble this week trying to design a debt brake to put in its own constitution that would be credible to potential creditors (they were doing this anyway regardless of the treaty). The point being that constitutional amendment that 90 of 150 MPs support now, can be overidden by another 90 of 150 at some point in the future. One aspect of the brake is that involves freezing MPs salaries until the country gets back in the black – so that it would be politically difficult to vote an exception to this rule in the future. As the designer said “it was one of the best things we could think of, short of throwing ministers in jail and confiscating their personal property it is difficult to enforce anything” (that’s a quote from my memory not a direct one). When it is in a treaty at least it is more difficult for a country to be irresponsible on its own, so they are obviously hoping that this treaty will reduce their bond yields a bit more than the simple consitutional amendment would.
@Richard Swales
” It still doesn’t change the fact that it makes no sense for the UK to be signed up to rules intended for a common currency when we have our own currency and are still able to borrow in it”
Agreed, which is why the stricter policing only applies to those countries in the Eurozone.
“Britain needs to stay at the heart of European decision-making”
Why? So we can stand amongst the people who are ignoring us? We were “at the heart of European decision-making” on Friday, and we were offered nothing at all that I know of. The EU is ruled by the Franco-German Alliance, always has been and always will be. The Euro was not something we wanted, nor was the Lisbon Treaty. I notice that not one europhile ever points to anything we have ever got the EU to do. So what is the point of being “at the heart of European decision-making”?
@Mark, then I stand corrected. What would signing up involve then? The main discussion in the Czech republic (a non-eurozone member who is signing up and whose language I understand) seems to be about pooling 10 percent of their foreign currency reserves as part of some new stabilisation fund.
Isn’t it wonderful how many people are experts in high finance and European legislation? We have seen a flood of postings from experts, on this site and elsewhere, who know for certain that what Cameron did was unavoidable and a vital defence of major British interests. We have seen an equal flood of postings from experts who know that the financial arguments etc are all bogus or unimportant. It’s clear that at least half of these experts, quite possibly all of them, are using an orifice which isn’t the mouth when they do their talking.
Well, finally we’ve heard from some people who might really know something, the voice of business, making two points. First, whether or not you love banks and the City, the health of an “industry” which earns such a large share or Britain’s income really matters. Secondly, Cameron has grossly mishandled the defence of that interest. He didn’t use the veto, he just simply lost: and his “empty chair” policy risks being disastrous for Britain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16133286
Despite this, the British public seem to believe the opposite. They believe Cameron is the new Churchill fighting on the beaches. In fact, they’re disastrously attracted by simplistic posturing. Just like far too many posters on this site, in fact.
Dangerous times. Cameron could call a snap khaki election and win on an anti-foreigner surge. Time to stress that all courses are dangerous, nothing is simple, and the most dangerous thing to do is to assume that it is simple.
@ Orangepan – “the point is simple, if you want to be in the market and support the benefits gained by trade, then we must bear some responsibility for setting the rules of exchange.”
Not good enough.
We had numerous people, senior lib-dem’s included, who all agreed that our negotioating position was very reasonable, and imposed to excessive burden on any nations that don’t have a ideological predisposition to see the City of London as a threat.
We did not ask for repatriated power, not that i would have minded, we merely sought to ensure that the coming tide of financial regulation does not screw the city up.
Everything has a value as well as a price. Cameron used the threat to impress upon Merkozy the value we attribute to the City, and how it far exceeded the price they thought it worth. They still didn’t back down, but that is the way of such things sometimes, compromise not always being possible.
They are able to do everything today that they might have dreamed of yesterday as far as implementing measures that would save the eurozone.
No dice, there choice, tough luck.
@ Bill – “Philip, if the deal is as inadequate as you suggest, the markets would have already reacted. They haven’t.”
Dear Bill, you should always be wary when important decisions are timed so that the consequences of their anticipated inadequacy are ameliorated.
Decisions happened on friday, shortly before the close of markets for weekend, and we have not yet got to monday.
Let us not judge to quickly.
@ David – “It’s clear that at least half of these experts, quite possibly all of them, are using an orifice which isn’t the mouth when they do their talking.”
It is my pleasure, you are welcome.
Morning Jed – FTSE down 20. (EMH in action?!) Markets expected the decision to be made and are not at all fussed by anything the UK did/does, as it is all about the monetary policy of the Euro Zone.
This was never about fiscal matters – it was always about getting a fiscal agreement that allowed for monetary easing.
(Philip, I hope it does lead to plenty of QE from the ECB and does make speculators think twice before taking on the stabilization fund, because that is what it is designed to do. Interesting to see that Czech Republic will be in the team that the UK has excluded itself from … taking its bat and ball home.)
I still believe that financiers are seeing this differently from politicos. There is an urgent need for ECB to get itself off the hook it is on. The Euro Zone cannot recover with monetary policy that works for Germany when it thrusts deflation on the rest. Even Austria has been given the treatment recently. Germany has to get over its inflation phobia.
Financiers (risk calculators that they are) also don’t think that these sovereign ‘restrictions’ will be permanent. They are necessary (but not sufficient now), but if/when recovery has taken place the new landscape will require a return to greater subsidiarity.
Why do we imagine that only the Brits are pragmatic?
And why, when insufficient monetary growth in Europe and other developed economies is slowing down the global economy, are politicians obsessed with fiscal policy while leaving monetary policy to unelected, unaccountable central bankers?
Martin in this piece above writes, “Unfortunately, other countries were not prepared to include those safeguards for the single market in the changes we were discussing. The Prime Minister was left with no real choice and had to make the decision he did.”
Well most of the other 26 countries had things that they wanted to safeguard too, but agreed to waive those in order to get a deision that night.
Had there been no decision over Thursday night/Friday morning , but a statement saying that the 27 were going forward looking a a list of potential safeguards raised by member states, there would have been wholesale carnage in the markets, immediately.
That is why the other 26 agreed not to press their concerns there and then. No dowubt they will be resolved as the treaty is drafted over the coming months.
You are either a partner or an outsider – Cameron chose to be an outsider and because Clegg had not been firm enough in the run in, the PM thought it a matter with little cost to appease his Europhobes.
“jedibeeftrix”
Let’s see if Martin Horwood and others answer your clear minded questions.
It is so sad to see the Liberals with their traditional concern for our country trapped inside the Liberal Democrats with the remnants of the elitist EU-fanatic Social Democrat right of centre inegalitarian refugees from the formerly EU-sceptic and egalitarian Labour Party.
Like Liberals, Liberal Democrats often have different personalities and policy priorities depending upon whether they are fighting in Conservative or Labour constituencies. Tragically, while the Liberal Party clutched harmlessly at regionalism to give them something they could all agree upon wherever the Annual Liberal Party Assembly was being held, Liberal Democrats have clutched at the EU.
So Liberal Democrats now no longer represent our country, but instead represent the over-paid, under taxed unelected European Commission bureaucrats, with their institutionalised quasi-religious enthusiasm for a single country called Europe – protectionist EU-nationalism instead of internationalism.
The continuing Liberal Party is more clear minded about where the interests of our country lie. Friday was a great day for our country. Well done David Cameron! We are on our way out of full membership of the EU and into some kind of looser associate membership, hopefully including Turkey.
Those who have pointed out that if the measures to save the eurozone fail the posturings of the UK will be a sideshow against the economic debacle across Europe (including the UK) are clearly right.
All the more reason why Cameron’s dangerous gamble was so ill-judged. His actions should have been directed first and foremost to give maximum traction to the moves to provide disciplines within the eurozone which will hopefully enable the ECB to act in the way we all want and allow even Germany to move away from its understandable reluctance to permit this. George Osborne in particular was calling for exactly these measures so let’s not now try to say Cameron’s “veto” was anything to do with opposing the eurozone measures as such.
Bill le Breton has it in a nutshell. The regulation of the financial sector was nothing to do with this treaty discussion. This issue is being separately negotiated with any move towards a Tobin tax decided by unanimity and other measures subject to qualified majority voting (what chance would you give now for British views to prevail there!). Therefore it is not a question of the reasonableness or otherwise of Cameron’s demands it is the time and place of their being raised. Knowing that there was value in the British vote – allowing the world to see unanimity in agreeing measures to apply to the eurozone countries and deflecting arguments about whether or not EU institutions and facilities could properly be used for discussions and actions specific to the eurozone – Cameron tried to put a price on his vote. Supported unfortunately by Nick Clegg et al (seems like only Vince Cable warned against this in cabinet)he decided the least he could get away with against the background of his braying backbenchers was to try to pre-empt negotiations on some aspects of financial services which as Bill le Breton has pointed out were nothing to do with the eurozone measures.
As Sharon Bowles has pointed out this gamble spectacularly failed because Merkozy decided they had had enough of placating the burgeoning Bill Cash tendency in theTory party. The result would have been bad for the UK even if a sizeable number of the other non-eurozone countries had followed Cameron’s lead. To be left virtually isolated is a potential disaster for the UK.
Let’s hope Nick Clegg can salvage something from the rubble – I’m not holding my breath.
Frankly, Cameron didn’t even bother trying to reach some consensus for his position. Possibly too lazy to fight for British interests, possibly incompetent, or most likely he simply didn’t want to. His internal party cohesion was more important for him than the long term national interest. Every British Prime Minister that I can remember fought long and weary battles for the British interest within the erstwhile EEC and the present EU, but none of them came back, empty handed, with a slap in the face. Callaghan had an enormous struggle, but won. Thatcher turned handbagging into an art form. Major got what this country needed, and was prepared to face down his own “B*stards” to get it. Blair and Brown also had big rows with Europe. Cameron didn’t even try. What struck me was the look on Cameron and Hague’s faces the next day. I think what they have achieved started to sink in. Isolated in a minority of one is not a good position for any political leader.
@Dane Clouston
“the continuing Liberal Party” is anything but. The Liberal Party dissolved on the 2nd of March, 1988. Your political party, with its huge membership of two score or something, simply usurped the title. It has no connection whatsoever to the party of Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George, merely pretence. Frankly a joke party, with no influence whatsoever. As befits a joke party, its policies are beyond ridicule, including its outright Europhobia.
@ Denis – “The regulation of the financial sector was nothing to do with this treaty discussion.”
As noted elsewhere; Wrong:
“On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy presented their own ideas on tighter integration in a letter to Van Rompuy. The areas that could be in a “new common legal framework” according to Paris and Berlin are financial regulation, labor markets, harmonization of the corporate tax base, a financial transaction tax and better use of EU funds for growth policies.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/07/us-eurozone-integration-proposals-idUSTRE7B61UD20111207
@judybeatrix
I note the use of the word “could”. Justify your assertion that “could” became “is”, as otherwise you are merely speculating.
@ Paul –
My pleasure:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/07/us-eurozone-france-letter-idUSTRE7B612Y20111207
“Mr President, To overcome the current crisis, all necessary measures to stabilize the euro area as a whole will have to be taken. Those steps need to be taken now without further delay. We consider this as a matter of necessity, credibility and confidence in the future of Economic and Monetary Union. This conviction is the driving-force behind our proposal. * Financial regulation; * Labor markets; * Convergence and harmonization of corporate tax base and creation of a financial transaction tax;”
… errr … and the proposal was to apply those outside of the Eurozone?
there are bullet points that explicitly mention the eurozone………….. and then there are bullet points that remain ambiguous.
as bagehot (the old europhile charlamagne) has put it best:
“I think that a big part of the problem of Britain’s relationship with Europe is that we genuinely are different. To simplify, as I said on the BBC this morning, I think that to some extent what happened on Thursday night was the logical end-point of a relationship based on distrust. Successive British governments have believed that on balance membership of the EU is in their interests (or is worse than non-membership). But because we are different (and because we take a common law as opposed to Napoleonic view of regulation, favouring a world in which everything is allowed unless it is expressly prohibited), we seek at every turn to pin down every detail of new rules or schemes being proposed, in case some of it turns out to be harmful. What was on the table on Thursday night was not clear in all its details when it came to the implications for the single market, so it was genuinely a tricky document for Mr Cameron.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/12/britain-and-eu-2
and remember, he’s a europhile!
@judybeatrix
So, that’s a pretty weak response to the question. Listening to the debate in the HoC, Ed Miliband, Jack Straw and Dave Miliband forensically demolished Full Bladder’s claims on this particular issue. There were no simply proposals damaging to the City.
It remains good enough for me.
@jedibeeftrix, That what is not expressly forbidden is therefore allowed is emphatically not a feature of British law, where judges can create new precedents that apply to your own case, not just future cases.
This may be an advantage of British law – for example judges were able to reinterpret (i.e. make up) law to ban cyber squatting (i.e. registering a domain name that “should” belong to someone else), whereas in other places this required new primary legislation and it took ages to sort out who should own what – for example google.cz as a site actually controlled by google itself rather than the squatters has been up for only about 5 years.
I find myself in somewhat of a quandry here. Yes of course we need to remain at the heart of European decision-making per the post title. Bu that doesn’t meen that we should sign up for any nonsense that Brussels, Berlin and Paris dream up – and what they have come up with here is recipe for future disaster that does little or nothing to fix the short term problem.
The proposed remedy is strictly applied limits on deficits etc. (presumably in contrast to last time when they were largely ignored) that will be procyclical. So if (which is to say when) any country experiences a downturn in future and sees tax revenues fall as spending on unemployment etc increases they will be required to CUT spending. It’s austerity on steroids. This never worked when the IMF imposed it on third world countries, it isn’t working in Greece or Spain or Britain now, and it won’t work in the future.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2011/12/europes-suicide-pact/
So, bottom line, the Euro has been a monumental error and the EU needs help to get out of the hole it’s dug for itself. Sarkozy faces the possibility that France’s banking sector will collapse before Christmas and Cameron wants to talk about his shopping list – no wonder his contribution was a welcome as a ham sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah.
“If the Frankfurt Group Euro-federalists were not planning measures which the Square Mile would resist, it would have cost them nothing to agree to David Cameron’s amendment.”
@jedi
it’s unfortunate that the emerging reports show Cameron’s ‘negotiating position’ to be anything of the sort, and the consequence of using a veto has the potential to wreck the single market, demolishing trade at a stroke.
It is a diplomatic catastrophe for anti-Europeans, they are merely crowing before the reality dawns. Cameron is facing a humilating climbdown as negative growth figures will force his hand, though I hesitate before saying this marks the beginning of the end for his premiership.
“It is a diplomatic catastrophe for anti-Europeans, they are merely crowing before the reality dawns. Cameron is facing a humilating climbdown as negative growth figures will force his hand, though I hesitate before saying this marks the beginning of the end for his premiership.”
Lol, we’ll see.